Incident Overview
Description
A Convair 580 airplane, N587X, had undergone a C-check at Columbus-Rickenbacker Airport (LCK). The C-check included flight control cable rigging. A captain, first officer, and a company pilot were taking the aircraft on a post maintenance check flight to Mansfield (MFD). At 12:00, the flight received its takeoff clearance, and the airplane started its takeoff roll about 12:03 from runway 05L. About one minute later, at 12:04 the flight contacted ATC and stated that it needed to return to the airport, and it was cleared to land on runway 5L. ATC asked the flight if it needed equipment and the flight responded, “Negative.” About 12:06, the airplane impacted a cornfield about one mile southwest of the approach end of runway 5L. It cut through the high corn that was produced by the airplane’s landing gear, fuselage, and wings indicated that it was in a slight right wing down attitude on a glide path of about 10 degrees at impact. The initial contact with the corn revealed three parallel cuts through the corn that were consistent with the landing gear being in the down position. Both left and right propeller gearboxes separated from the engines and were found near the initial impact point. All four blades from both propeller hubs were separated from the hubs and were found throughout the wreckage path. Both propeller hubs were located about 1,250 feet from the initial impact point, the furthest wreckage found in the debris field. The debris field stretched from about 665 feet from the initial point of impact to an abandoned set of railroad tracks within a tree line. The main wreckage was found about 160 feet south of the railroad tracks, or about 825 feet from the initial impact point. The on-site inspection of the accident airplane revealed that the elevator trim cables were reversed. As a result, when the pilot applied nose-up trim, the elevator trim system actually applied nose-down trim. PROBABLE CAUSE: “The improper (reverse) rigging of the elevator trim cables by company maintenance personnel, and their subsequent failure to discover the misrigging during required post-maintenance checks. Contributing to the accident was the captains inadequate post-maintenance preflight check.”
Primary Cause
Improper rigging of elevator trim cables by company maintenance personnel and subsequent failure to discover the misconfiguration during required post-maintenance checks.Improper rigging of elevator trim cables by company maintenance personnel and subsequent failure to discover the misconfiguration during required post-maintenance checks.Share on:
